Monday, June 9, 2008

Tonight I went and saw some film-noir westerns at the New Beverly. The films were Ramrod and Station West. I figure if I record them here, I might be able to give Mar a list of the westerns and/or zombie films I see and use my budget for them. Here's wishful thinking.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movies enough considering I was zoning out a lot of the time in order to think about my film. Here are some things I thought about: I'm changing the cowboy and damsel's outfits slightly just because I can and because I think I know how to make them look better. I considered making the movie black and white with some grainy stuff and editing errors, but I decided that was gimmicky and stupid. Good for me. I have some ideas for the actual town layout now, and that's a plus.

Also, I was watching my Simpsons DVDs today, as I am wont to do, and I watched an old animatic extra they had for 'Homer's Triple Bypass'. The main screen was the keyframes for the episode, and I think that's what my goal is this summer - to keyframe my film. Or most of it. As much as I can. I figure that the animatic doesn't do the action justice, and, seeing as how it's an action movie, no one is going to really get what I'm planning until I have the action mapped out. I don't think I even understand my action fully yet. Timing is so important that I may as well try and picture lock the film as soon as I can, right? Right.

This blog sure is word-heavy. I think I'll try to add some eye candy really soon. So many drawings to do and scan. I might be in over my head. I know I was planning to wait until after college to develop a mental disorder, but the thing could trick me and come early.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Okay guys. Here's the deal - I've updated my story. I didn't go back to square one, so please don't have a heart attack, but I did go back a little bit and get rid of the root of all my freaking problems - The Bartender/Burlesque Dancer.

She is toast. She was bringing down the story and I wasn't going to have that, so I killed her off.

Here's how the story goes now (this is going to be horribly written. Please bear with me.)-

It starts off with the entire train sequence, only the damsel dies once again and the villain rides off happily. Then it cuts to the cowboy drinking his sorrows away at the saloon. Back to the train, lightning and zombies. At the saloon, the cowboy has passed out. The zombified damsel enters, bites a dude, and then lunges toward the cowboy. He fires off some shots and misses every time, she closes in, he closes his eyes and fires off one more shot. The zombie falls to the ground and the cowboy looks down at her. He gets really happy, looks out at the rest of the town, and decides he can save it.

Then we get into some gags where the cowboy acts like a spaz. He shoots down the home of a family he's trying to save, jumps over a horse instead of on top of it, and ends up kicking some burlesque dancers into a crowd of zombies while trying to save them. In the end, he is cornered against a storefront and shoots at the hoard of zombies that approaches. He runs out of ammo, notices a flaming plank next to him, and picks it up. The cowboy starts swinging and ends up kicking a lot of butt with that stick, but he also ends up lighting various parts of the town on fire. By the time he notices, the town is in flames. The flames reach the ammunition store and it explodes, killing everyone.

The credits would roll over scenes of a zombie town, like I originally planned.

So I know that sounds like I added a whole lot of new stuff, but I actually haven't. Everything is the same except for the way the damsel dies, and the final two scenes of the film. The biggest change is that now I don't have to cut between two characters, and I don't have an extra character bringing the film down with all of her baggage. What a plus!

Now the plan is to make an entire page of zombie designs, storyboard out my new sequences, and start some animation. This summer is going to rule.